Quote by Howard Hanson about Music and the American Midwest

"I started it with the keen feeling that there were beings of higher intelligence controlling what I was doing, and I didn’t know how to talk about it or explain it. I called them ‘spirits’. It was very clear to me that the music was coming from somewhere other than me. But if you shut off your brain you will notice that music exists beyond anything that we perceive with our five senses, and we don’t really understand how it is that music exists in the air and comes through us as a vehicle. But it does." John Frusciante

"The blues are easy to play but not to feel. The background to our music is a spiritual-blues thing. Blues is a part of America. We're making our music into electric church music—a new kind of Bible, not like in a hotel, but a Bible you carry in your hearts, one that will give you a physical feeling. We try to make our music so loose and hard-hitting so that it hits your soul hard enough to make it open. It's like shock therapy or a can opener. Rock is technically blues-based...We want them to realize that our music is just as spiritual as going to church." Jimi Hendrix